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I’ve always liked Bill Clinton, aside from the Monica-cigargate episode of course, but now he really rises to the top of my esteem. By talking openly about how and why he is embracing a near vegan diet, he is making highly nutritious food mainstream and acceptable and that is frankly amazing for the nutritional health of the planet.

My ‘educated’ friends, family and work mates regularly scoff me for my ‘crazy/mad/extreme’ rituals of drinking wheatgrass shots, chlorella and spinach shakes or even coconut water. I let it go because I know that understanding that food is a nutritious fuel good for our mind, body and souls and not just a low cal, low fat way to get through the day, means accepting that the way we’ve been brought up in terms of diet is fundamentally not helpful to our bodies. It’s not easy. Our parents did what was best for us based on what their parents told them. Now that new best friend Bill advocates a plant based diet, proves the benefits by looking great and talks about it – we ‘crazies’ have an ambassador and we have hope. Perhaps even my friends will be convinced…

Mr Clinton’s penchant for burgers and barbecue and his battles with heart disease are well documented. But he has now gone public in America with the secret he shared with guests at his daughter’s nuptials – he is following a near-vegan regimen.

He was under orders from Chelsea, who is a long-standing vegan, to lose weight before he walked her down the aisle. But he opted for a plant-based low-fat diet, free of dairy or meat, because of bold claims that it naturally reverses coronary disease. He underwent bypass surgery in 2004 and then earlier this year had stents inserted to hold open his clogged coronary arteries.

“I went on essentially a plant-based diet,” the former president, 64, who is back on the campaign trail stumping for Democratic candidates in next month’s mid-term congressional elections, told a television interviewer who asked about his weight loss.

“I live on beans, legumes, vegetables, fruit. I drink a protein supplement every morning – no dairy, I drink almond milk mixed in with fruit and a protein powder so I get the protein for the day when I start the day up.”

He references a book called The China Study, which if you look at their website is a book that draws on findings in rural China, that detail the connection between nutrition and heart disease, diabetes and cancer. The report also examines the source of nutritional confusion produced by powerful lobbies, government entities, and opportunistic scientists. The New York Times has recognized the study (China-Oxford-Cornell Diet and Health Project) as the “Grand Prix of epidemiology” and the “most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease.”